Total variation based convex filters for medical imaging

Several variational based diffusion filters are applied to measured magnetic resonance images, and on this basis are evaluated for their suitability to medical imaging. In particular, a specific total variation based filter with a convex variational penalty function is introduced here for the enhancement of edge, flat, and grey image scales. In general, results reveal that convex total variation based filters can be implemented to perform very well to enhance the visual clarity of medical images. As a result, further support is provided to establish such methods for medical applications. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.